The Shift

by Ophidia

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, Trixie, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Mystery, Starlight Glimmer, Science Fiction, Ember, Queen Chrysalis, Violence, Human
Length: 5130

Life as a young engineer in the Republic of Mali is hard enough. Then a neurotechnological military breakthrough, a global religious awakening, and magical pastel-colored ponies throw one man's life into chaos.

As a postdoctoral researcher of neural engineering in the University of Bamako, Kamal Bhikha is in the midst of a major technological breakthrough. There's more craziness involved than he signed up for, though; not only are his efforts attracting the attention of the Malian Armed Forces, but supernatural equine-like beings are showing up around campus.

Meanwhile, an Australian family is witnessing something else strange. In the forest, characters of their youngest daughter's favorite show---the Canadian-American television series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic---walk lightly among the conifers and shrubs.

In the Western world, millions of Christians are reporting sightings of biblical figures, events, and settings. In the Arab world, something similar is happening, except that it all comes from Islamic doctrine. In other countries, Hinduism, Buddhism, and folk religions are manifesting in the same way.

Whatever connections may exist between these wonders, it's up to Kamal to figure them out. There's a lot more at play than anyone could suspect, threatening the very integrity of civilization itself.

Published 2020-11-06 17:10:00 UTC
Last updated 2020-11-30 19:06:44 UTC

The Chrysalis

As Kamal Bhikha stirred his millet porridge, he noticed Aminata give a chuckle and cup her hand around her nose.

"What?"

"I forgot to get my papers back from the basement," she replied, popping a piece of chicken in her mouth. "And then I didn't even get a fork."

Before she could rise, Kamal jumped to his feet.

"I'll get them for you."

The Faculté des Sciences et Techniques, or FAST, was blocky and stained inside and out. Against the warm-hued sand of Bamako, the building was a little lighter in color, its balconied façade punctuated with roundish trees. Slipping through the entrance, Kamal hurried down the staircase to the basement.

He'd descended into pool of darkness. Somewhere only the custodians came, swimming in both stale smell and chemical odor... and sometimes, Dr. Aminata Sow, to nab some peace and quiet while developing her research papers. Turning on his phone's flashlight to find the nearest light switch, Kamal aimed his phone ahead, projecting a panel of dim white and sweeping it side to side. Racks, cylinders, and carts swept past the glow, followed by something at which Kamal did a double take: a large, black sac, hanging from the ceiling.

It was about the size of a refrigerator, but rounded with organic irregularity. Something inside it pulsated, just barely stretching and relaxing the banded surface. Clearly coupled with something alive. Kamal was transfixed. Up until now, his Multisensory Hallucination Broadcast System (MHBS) had been the craziest thing anyone had seen in the University of Bamako. His mind flitted through possibilities. The university administration had been considering adding a biotechnology department to FAST. Was this some premature project? Some sort of bioengineered chrysalis?

Startled as he was, he hadn't forgotten his intentions. A neat stack of papers caught in his phone light. Kamal knew the report inside and out, that it detailed the impact of an experimental membrane antigen on antibody response to malaria. A week ago, he'd finished studying it for Aminata in an informal peer review. He wasn't sure if she really did think he'd helped to refine the report more than any other professional in FAST, or if it was just in his imagination.

His chest was growing hot with the thought of her reading his notes on it. She could've been thinking of him while doing so, thinking of what a good colleague he was. The feeling almost made him dizzy. He took up the stack from the table, keeping the papers all clamped together with one hand and holding his phone with the other.

At once, a noise like tearing paper ripped through the air. Kamal jumped back in alarm. The movement felt oddly leaden, and Kamal became aware of a lethargy which had set over him, as if the tender butterflies in his stomach at the thought of Aminata had been siphoning his energy all along.

A streak of glowing green sliced through the chrysalis at an angle, and Kamal nearly dropped the report. The lower portion of the chrysalis split at the green streak, revealing layers of translucent, dark-turquoise membranes. Nearly like an insect's wings, though spattered with ripped holes.

Over the course of five minutes, an animal extricated itself from the chrysalis, while Kamal stood engrossed, trying to make sense of such a great scientific mystery. Gradually, he lost his confidence that science would help at all as the animal became more obviously akin to something from myth. His undergraduate minor had been in ancient Greek culture, but it had been something by which he was fascinated for its own sake, not because it would have ever applied later in life. The hero Bellerophon had tried to ride to Mount Olympus on Pegasus' back, ruffling the feathers of the gods. Now, Kamal stood before an insectoid, caricatured version of the winged horse, damaged with empty holes and sporting a torn-up cone on its head, almost like the lesser horn of a rhinoceros. Like a unicorn. Splintering cracks and squelches of slime accompanied its efforts.

Any more thoughts of Greek mythology and he'd end up in Jahannam for shirk, the greatest sin in Islam and nearly unforgiveable. His thoughts switched to the Burāq, the winged animal on whose back the Prophet Muhammad had flown from Mecca to Jerusalem. In Sahih al-Bukhari, she was "handsome-faced and bridled, a tall, white beast, bigger than the donkey but smaller than the mule." The Burāq before him, who had nearly extricated herself from her chrysalis, seemed much bigger. She was horned and dark, insectoid and splotched with gaping holes, but what did the details matter?

The longer he stayed, the more he felt he would faint from exhaustion, despite his racing heart. The Burāq was an incredible sight, but it struck him that if he stayed down here any longer, he'd be unconscious in minutes.

Or...

The Malian Armed Forces had contacted him a week ago, having grasped the potential of a technology that could induce any realistic hallucination in any unsuspecting target. Was someone messing with it?

Breathing sharply, Kamal backed away and dashed back up the staircase, bursting from the FAST into the dry, bright day. A painful squeeze seized his unadjusted eyes, but he didn't care.

In the ISA, or the Institute of Applied Sciences, he saw his laboratory was vacant, save for a lone janitor. His prized array of computers, antennae, and machines sat in the center, powered off.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, trying to speak against his own breaths. "Did anyone come here in the past few minutes?"

"No. It's just been me," the janitor replied.

Kamal closed his eyes for a second, rubbing his forehead.

I need coffee.

Marching past the twin Malian flags displayed near the entrance of the cafeteria, sweating like a pig, Kamal made his way to his seat and sat down before Aminata. She was done with her chicken, and had moved on to her katta, a wheat flour pasta that looked like scrambled reeds on a plate. At least, it was a cheap version of the special dish.

"Your papers," Kamal said, putting her report on the table. His sweaty fingers had made dark, wet indentations on one side of the stack. Already, he was wishing he could just disappear.

"Thanks."

At Aminata's smile, Kamal melted a little inside. He remembered the Burāq. The MHBS hadn't been activated, but in his current cognitive state, recovered from the odd fatigue, he cringed internally. Mythical Islamic beings didn't just appear in faculty basements. Either some other computer/neural engineer was developing a similar technology nearby, which was unlikely, or someone had laced one of Kamal's recent meals with an unwanted substance.

After lunch, he returned to his lab. Standing before a counter laden with computer parts, he closed his eyes again, being mindful only of the hum of air conditioning and the sterile smell of the place. Then, he plopped down in front of a desktop, pulling up Chrome.

Internet in Bamako had gotten a lot better since 2022. When Kamal was 18, it had taken four hours to fill out his college application, and he'd had to convince the owner of the Internet café he was using that he could pay the money back later in exchange for just thirty more minutes of an Internet connection. At present, however, the university's Wi-Fi was returning results in an instant.

"Unicorn with holes chrysalis" proved a worthy search. He had only half-expected to see anything close to the twisted take on the Burāq in the FAST basement. Yet, a startlingly close match came from an unexpected source: an American children's program. Queen Chrysalis, it read. The fictional antagonist of fantasy television broadcast. But there was one discrepancy; surely, any animal who ferried the Prophet Muhammad to Heaven could hardly be villainous.

Kamal sat with his chin on his forearm, scrolling slowly through the online article on this fantasy character. He followed a hyperlink to a YouTube video: a segment of an episode from the children's program. Putting thoughts of hallucinations and Islam aside, he let himself admire the cute animation, full of unicorns and magic.

"What's that?"

The voice came from behind him. Kamal closed the tab, simultaneously annoyed and embarrassed. Turning around in his rolling chair, he immediately stood up from his chair at the sight of Mr. Ambièlè Gueye, vice dean of the ISA.

"Mr. Gueye."

"Dr. Bhikha. I hope you're doing well," the balding man said. His voice was naturally low and smooth, and he smiled slightly as he spoke. In Kamal's eyes, it all culminated in an air of arrogance.

"Uh, yeah. I hope the evening's been treating you well, too."

"It hasn't. I'm planning to consult with Dr. Sow, but I feel I should speak with you first."

"I'm sorry, is everything okay?"

"Not exactly. A few days ago, I'd discovered some particularly offensive information in regards to Dr. Sow."

Kamal wasn't sure how to answer. It felt uncomfortable, discussing something like this so close to an afternoon prayer.

"You see, the campus has a standard of morality to uphold. And..."

Ambièlè leaned to the side to look past Kamal at his computer monitor. Just the home screen was showing.

"... I'd never thought of you as very effeminate."

"I'm not," Kamal said quickly. "I was just sort of... randomly curious."

He cringed at himself for the second time that day.

"Dr. Bhikha, I want you to meet me in my office after the Asr prayer," Ambièlè said.

"Understood, Mr. Gueye."

As if taunting him, the catty voices of children's fantasy characters replayed in Kamal's head like a broken record. Ambièlè exited the lab, and Kamal stood alone by his computer, wracked with an uncertainty only matched on that day a decade ago, when he'd sent his undergraduate application.

A headache was setting in. He still needed coffee.

The Princess

As Kamal shut the maple office door behind him, he locked eyes with Ambièlè. The vice dean reminded Kamal of proper West African public official: as corrupt as a badly-saved computer file. If he was asking for a bribe, though, Kamal had resolved to resist.

"Sit down," Ambièlè said. Kamal obliged.

"As much as I am concerned about the financial stability and advancement of this university, I am equally concerned about its moral integrity. I recently uncovered that Dr. Sow is a transgender woman. I also know you two have been extremely close, and in addition to that... Your conduct just hours ago could be described as effeminate. You were looking at a program aimed towards young girls."

Kamal had known of Aminata's transition as soon as it had begun. He'd settled on a don't ask, don't tell policy, keeping word of it from his tongue and assuming nobody else would develop suspicion.

"This country isn't a victim of Western imperialism. I cannot condone either of these traits in either you or Dr. Sow, so I'm asking you to step down as a postdoctoral researcher and seek a position elsewhere."

"Mr. Gueye---"

"Dr. Bhikha, I don't feel like trying to negotiate with you. I can give you and Dr. Sow a month's worth of severance pay." Ambièlè leaned into the flexible backrest of his rolling chair, which creaked under his bulk. "We are all called upon by God to care deeply for our morality. It was your and your colleague's choice to stray from that path."

Kamal glanced at the contemptible little bobblehead figure on Ambièlè's desk, then back to the administrator himself.

"That's fine."

But how to remove the MHBS from the prying eyes of the military within an appropriate window of time? He'd developed it for therapeutic treatment and career readiness, not to exacerbate the death toll of the separatist conflict in the north.

"I need to take my neural technology with me," Kamal said. Each word fed into the lump in his throat.

"No," Ambièlè murmured, giving a slight smirk and a shake of his head.

A true West African official.

"Mr. Gueye, I'm sorry---"

"What did I just say? I don't feel like trying to negotiate with you!" Ambièlè waved his hand, his voice going gaspy. "I want you out of my office."

Kamal took a second to study Ambièlè's face. A privileged, pimply one. Unused to impact and injury.

Past the open window shades, the capital city of the Republic of Mali sprawled with dense disorder, a granola mix of trees, sand, and beige buildings of modest height. The sunset had set the city afire with an orange glow, searing the underbellies of clouds with coral tones and flooding magma into the open sky.

"I know you have family responsibilities," Ambièlè said more calmly. "You can come back tomorrow to pack up."

Kamal exited the building with a burning chest, his hands in his pockets. After a long drive home, he stepped out into an area that wasn't quite as green or developed as the heart of Bamako. A little more sandy. His postdoc salary easily covered the rent for his flat-roofed home, kilometers away from family.

That night, he never went to sleep. Just lay atop his bedsheets, staring at the texture of the ceiling. He checked his phone: 1:30 AM.

It felt suspicious, slipping into his old Honda in the middle of the night. He absently eyed the city lights dashing across the windows as he drove. Parking close to the Institute of Applied Sciences, he had only one thing in mind: the MHBS.

Fumbling with his keys, he let himself into the vacant hall and immediately delved into his crafty work, ferrying computers, cables, transformers, antennas, neural sensors, and other electronic units from the laboratory and to the backseat of his car. As he tucked a magnetic flux regulator into the back trunk, the cocking of a gun sounded behind him. He froze, his hands clammy against the regulator's cold metal.

"Don't move," a low voice ground out. "I know you have cash."

"It's in my car. Just let me get it."

"Okay. Go slow."

Carefully setting down the regulator, Kamal kept his hands where the mugger could see them, and moved slowly to the driver's seat. Hearing a soft gasp flutter from the criminal, he paused and looked.

The man's pistol was suspended in open air, a few feet in front of him. A rippling film of sunray-like light undulated around the gun, warming a radius of space that Kamal could feel. The pistol itself was directed at the mugger himself, who was backing slowly away.

The work of God!

This confirmed it. A second instance of the impossible meant that the first, in the form of a chrysalis, had probably been real. The chrysalis meant there was some elusive link between the day's supernatural occurrences and the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic TV series. Life was probably going to get even stranger for the next few days, Kamal thought. Inshallah.

The crackly pang of breaking glass ripped through the night breeze. All the other components of the broadcast system---the radios, the ultrasonic transducers, the neuromagnetic inductors---moved through the ISA's broken windows as if attached to silent, invisible drones, each component blurred in a sparkling bubble of sunlight. Hearing the pistol clatter to the asphalt, Kamal turned around to see that the mugger was gone.

In the man's place was the Burāq, in her true and handsome form: Tall and milk-white, clad in a golden helmet crested with scarlet plumes. Her hooves fit snugly into gleaming gold sabatons, and a golden breastplate protected the mare's chest. On her thigh, a symbol of the sun flashed, blending seamlessly into the fur. She was as if the Greek Pegasus had become a unicorn as well, her horn burning with a sun-gold aura.

Kamal took a step back, watching the electronic instruments of the MHBS being stuffed into his car under the Burāq's supernatural control. Her mane must have been thick, because it flowed down from her helmet and writhed as if it itself were an organism. Perhaps the supernatural sunlight was being dispersed using trace amounts of water in the air, Kamal thought, because it was as if the Burāq's mane and tail were each made of a threaded, sparkling rainbow.

The next few seconds passed in silence, save for the gentle hum of the mare's golden energy as it conveyed the last of the electronic instruments to the Honda.

"What are you doing?" Kamal sputtered.

When the Burāq looked at him, her massive, liquid eyes made her seem sympathetic. Kamal had asked the question to himself, not really expecting a horse to speak, but the Burāq answered.

"You may call me Princess Celestia," she said, her equine maw pronouncing general American English perfectly. Her voice was like milk and honey. "I recognize the unique potential of your innovation, and I thought I would help you to remove it from this property."

Simultaneously stunned at her form and confused by her intervention, Kamal continued. "I don't understand. How are you here? What is it that you want?"

"I want peace for your world," the Burāq---or rather, Princess Celestia---replied. Kamal could've been content for hours just listening to her deep, womanly voice. "I cannot trust that the military of such a country as this will not abuse your neural technology. And the wrong hands, the system has the potential to throw your kind into chaos."

Kamal wondered if he'd been underestimating the ramifications of his research. Could it really have such an impact?

"Are you an agent of God?" Kamal asked.

Celestia shook her head.

"I rule a faraway land called Equestria. In my absence, my sister, Princess Luna, is temporarily covering my responsibilities. I can only remain here for so long before I must return to relieve her."

"Do you... Do you know that you're a cartoon here?"

"I'm well aware of that." Celestia walked closer to Kamal, her gold shoes clinking against the sandy asphalt. "It might seem bizarre, even dreamlike, but the universe is more complicated than your kind could ever grasp."

A pang of skepticism hit Kamal. He'd thought about the idea, too. There probably lay a plethora of cosmic concepts that existed beyond human comprehension. After all, just because an ape couldn't understand calculus didn't mean that there was no such thing as calculus, and humans were only so much smarter than their primitive evolutionary cousins. But it didn't look like Celestia's brain-to-body mass ratio was any higher than that of man.

But then again, she was also a talking unicorn channeling actual magic through her horn.

"I want to help you in any way I can," Celestia continued. "Primitive and violent as humankind may be, you're also a most beautiful civilization. The arts, sciences, technologies, and mathematics of humankind surpass those of most Equestrians."

If she was trying to flatter him, she was only feeding into his skepticism. But the thought died as Kamal conjured a fragmented memory, something he hadn't made much effort to remember in the first place. Something about Australia, that he'd dismissed as an error in the remote sensing software.

I want to help you in any way I can...

"There's one thing I'd need help with," Kamal replied. Celestia cocked her head. "And it might really change things about this situation. But it's something I need to figure out."

In that moment, he saw Aminata's dusty coupé pull into the vacant lot. He didn't feel the need to run or hide, but there were so many things to say if she approached, and he wasn't sure he knew how to say them all.

Aminata parked her car next to Kamal's. Celestia seemed curious too, lifting a front leg and twisting her graceful frame to look around.

Flight

Staring from the parking curb, Kamal watched Aminata shut her car door, then approach he and Princess Celestia with the caution of a housecat. Clothed in the unisex, ankle-length djellaba, her hair hidden in a headwrap, she looked like she'd been out somewhere for the night. Some kind of research conference?

"Aminata, what are you doing here?"

"It was Salsa Night at La Terrasse, and I saw you drive past... "

Her voice trailed off as she beheld Celestia, her mouth half-open.

So no conference.

As she drew forward, she tripped on the exposed root of a flowering cailcedra, and Kamal thought she was going to fall. Celestia's horn shimmered with sunlight, and a plume of gold-white flushed from Aminata's spine. It seemed to yank her back upright, saving her from losing her balance. She took a few steps backwards in fear, then stood still for ten dense seconds. Shutting her mouth, she continued her approach.

"It's an angel," she said.

"No," Celestia replied. "I'm an Equestrian. I hail from a faraway world known as Equestria."

Celestia turned to Kamal, her massive pupils, those cosmic black holes girdled with light-amethyst irises, boring into his face. "Kamal, were you going to tell me something?"

"The other day, I, uh, I was trying to remotely sense the large geomagnetic fluctuations caused by the machine, and I picked up something matching in Australia. Specifically, in a forest in Victoria. I thought it was some kind of error, but... "

Aminata took in a shaky breath, then exhaled smoothly, relaxing her shoulders. "That makes sense," she said, pointing to Celestia. "This isn't real. This is a hallucination. Haven't you seen the news?"

For a moment, Kamal wasn't sure how to answer. "No, I... I don't have electricity at home."

"I-in Australia," Aminata sputtered, "people---Christians---have been reporting sightings of Christian angels and saints. If the magnetic flux you detected corresponds with the charge distribution of MHBS-induced hallucinations... "

Kamal saw where she was going. He and Aminata had worked for years on the MHBS, and now someone could be mimicking the technology in an Australian forest. It had to be a copycat. He didn't need any reminding of how the scary National Intelligence people had ensured that no one outside of Mali would even have heard of an artificial hallucination broadcast.

"Celestia, you said you wanted to help me in any way you could."

"That I did."

"I need to find out what's going on in Australia. If someone's actually copying our tech, I need have some agency over that, and to be able to stop it if I must."

"Kamal," Aminata said, a hint of a chuckle in her voice. "She's not real!"

Kamal held up his hand exasperatedly. "Aminata, look in the car."

Aminata's eyes darted to his Honda, which was stuffed to the brim with electronic components---the disassembled, non-operational bulk of the MHBS. The sharp edge of a neuromorphic monitor had etched another scratch in the window. She looked back at Celestia. Then, clamping her hands over her mouth, her eyes like bowls in her head, she stepped back.

"Unless someone's broadcasting in this parking lot with us," Kamal said, "she's real. And this is going to sound crazy, but she looks almost exactly like a fictitious character from an American children's program."

"What?"

He wondered if Aminata knew she'd been fired.

"The universe works in complicated ways," Celestia purred. She glided towards Aminata, her gold sabatons clinking on the sandy asphalt. "I used a magical Crystal Mirror to get here. I'm sure that there's a scientific explanation for its energy, but whatever that may be, it's beyond the comprehension of even the most prominent Equestrian scholars."

Kamal knew that look on the face of Dr. Aminata Sow. That calculating revelation in her eyes, flickering in reciprocity to the sympathy and allure of Celestia's gaze.

"Kamal, are you familiar with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics?" Aminata asked. Kamal could almost feel her excitement, like a heat radiating from her.

"Not exactly." Though the name had already given him a hint.

"I can give you the gist. The interpretation proposes that the universe can be described by a single wave function, which defines a nearly infinite number of superimposed quantum states. These would translate into multiple possibilities of reality, once superimposed, yet at some point divided into many different realities."

Aminata's growing excitement was evidenced by her voice turning huskier than usual. Kamal slapped a mosquito from his forearm. "Like multiple universes?"

"Sort of. It's all in the same region of spacetime. Just in different parts of Hilbert space."

"What?"

"Hilbert space. Sort of a generalized Fourier Expansion?"

"I... I need to brush up on my geometry." Kamal waved his hand.

"Well, wherever this Equestria is," she continued, "it's not surprising that it mimics something on Earth. I think you said a children's program? As an art, it's something that might not have existed anywhere in the universe, until us humans created it. It's like Schrödinger's cat; before it was created, its status as either fiction or non-fiction were superimposed. Both realities exist, albeit apart from each other."

Aminata then looked at Celestia with a smile wider than any Kamal could recall seeing from her.

"You're real!" she cried, chuckling.

"I never once doubted it," Celestia replied.

"But... how are you here?"

"Like I said, I used the Crystal Mirror. I'm not sure what you were referring to when you mentioned wave functions or quantum states, but I suspect those principles may have something to do with the mirror; at least, once every thirty moons."

"Kamal, do you realize the implications of this?" Aminata asked. "The many-worlds interpretation is actually correct! That means, somewhere out in the universe, there's a reality where you're... a talking cat. And one where... the Nazis won World War Two. And... a universe where nothing at all exists in a stable state."

And somewhere out there was a mirror of crystal, able to convey observers from one quantum world to the next. Aminata was right; by the many-worlds interpretation, any work of fiction could exist as non-fiction, its contents abiding by the laws of physics via whatever scientific gymnastics were necessary.

"Kamal, I can carry you and your friend to Victoria, Australia, if that is desirable," Celestia said. She sank in a four-legged crouch, as if beckoning he and Aminata to climb on.

The only place outside of Mali to which Kamal had ever traveled was Jordan, when he'd studied abroad as a graduate student of neural engineering. Australia, despite laying far southeast, was thoroughly Western. He fidgeted with a remote maxima inductor, a tube jutting from the half-open window at the passenger seat. It was a remarkable device, containing an arrangement of wires that allowed it to mimic whatever hypothetical material could be described by a negative magnetic permeability. The technology availed itself of the fact that electromagnetic induction could go in either direction; a change in magnetic flux could cause an electromotive force, and an electric current could induce magnetism.

By the theoretical metamaterial, a current-induced magnetic field could take shape in an empty space away from its source, and probably make Samuel Earnshaw---the mathematician whose theorem such a phenomenon bluntly violated---roll in his grave. In the MHBS, the law of induction applied both ways; when a magnetic field was imposed, the current in the wires of the remote maxima inductor could form magnetic dipoles about a hundred meters away, and the new field would in turn induce neuron impulses in the brain of the enemy. They might see and hear gunfire that wasn't really there, or the illusion of a bomber flying overhead. Christians might see a flock of angels gracing the sky above.

In fact, with a more complex assembly of wires and a bit of artificial intelligence, a person might manage to induce magnetism at distances much further than one hundred meters. There was a small chance that another mystery copycat, lurking about some shadowy alleyway in Bamako, was broadcasting elaborate lines of magnetic flux, and that this Greek armor-clad horned Burāq could still be an induced mental construct. Kamal could only think of one way to find out for sure.

"What about the broadcast system?" he asked, gesturing to his car. In an instant, it was enveloped in a film of sunlight, and the resulting glow exploded into the cool night air. The tires pulled gently away from the asphalt.

"I'll carry it."

The sheer force being generated to lift over one ton... Kamal could hardly imagine. As a beast of burden, this equine species could revolutionize the economics of draft animals across the continent. The sudden paranoia that the supposed mystery copycat could read his brain gripped him, that his dehumanizing thoughts on an intelligent being of Islamic legend would be exposed for all to see.

The being, still crouched, looked him up and down. "No need to fear, little one. The ride will be perfectly safe; my magic will secure you."

Of course, the MHBS wasn't built to read minds. Aminata dusted off her djellaba, then touched Kamal's shoulder. At the jasmine-lilac fragrance of Bint El Sudan radiating from her, his stomach turned with adoration.

"You remember what we pledged at graduation?" she asked.

The obligation to serve humanity... for the public good.

"The Obligation of the Engineer," he replied. The oath originated from North America and, by 2023, had fully spread to Africa and Europe.

"Lives could be at stake. We need our technology back," she said, already swinging her right leg over where a saddle should have been. Kamal obliged and sat behind her. Warmth blossomed over either of his feet as they were enveloped in glimmering yellow, and he felt the same thing at his spine, making him feel oddly secure, despite the fact that there was nothing to hold onto.

The wonders of Equestrian magic.

His fingers dug into white fur as the winged beast sprang forward into the air, wind battering his face. The parking lot raced away from them, treetops whizzing past. He could make out the creaking of his car's mechanical infrastructure through the roar of air.

"Be careful with my car!" he shouted. "Its cargo is precious!"

On either side, eagle-like wings the size of castle doors breathed up and down. Kamal looked down. Under his magic-wrapped feet, the street lamps casting sodium vapor-orange over buildings' dilapidated facades burned past at what could have been seventy miles per hour. If he let his eyes relax, the light blurred into trails, along which raced the sandy roads and sandy clearings strewn with rocks and litter, and the trees that pocked the city's multihued beige and grey with fluffs of green.

He glanced back at Aminata to see her looking at the waxing moon, a lock of black hair that had escaped her headwrap rippling in the wind. Her skin looked dark blue by moonlight. And she still didn't know she was no longer a postdoc at UB.